How to deal with the later stage of landscape photography visualization

Lead: After shooting the magnificent rivers and mountains, what should be done in the later stage of landscape photography, and how can we better show the artistic conception of the photos? Come and have a look with me.

How to deal with visualization skills in the later stage of landscape photography: in the later stage of landscape photography visualization, the so-called visualization is to ignore those limited photography theories and follow the feelings to restore the impression at that time.

(1) light and shade

Many landscape photographers have read this sentence in countless books and raiders. A good photo, an excellent late stage, as can be seen from the histogram, the dark parts did not overflow, but the highlights were not exposed? But is this really correct? Let's take a look at the picture below.

This picture is a sunset shot by AX members while traveling in Dalian. The details of the reef in the foreground are clear, and the light in the foreground is soft and not dazzling. At first glance, there seems to be no problem. Then let's look at the histogram of this picture:

Histogram shadow does not overflow, highlight does not expose, it is perfect. But is this really the most reasonable and comfortable later period? Let's take a look at the picture below. Figure 2 is the final version of Happy Travel published online:

Compared with the figure 1, the main differences are highlights and shadows. The highlights in Figure 2 are obviously brighter and more dazzling, and the dark parts are darker or even have no details.

Let's look at the histogram in Figure 2:

I believe that this histogram with very serious end-to-end overflow must be a failed photo in the textbook.

When I compare the two pictures together, you feel that the second half of Figure 2 looks more comfortable and natural. Although the dark part of the foreground reef in Figure 2 overflows to no details, it only removes the elements that distract the vision in the foreground and guides the focus of the line of sight to the charming texture of the light-receiving surface of the reef, while the overexposed light in the distance enhances the light penetration when the sunset is reflected.

Although the data in Figure 2 is not good, why does it look more comfortable? That's because this later stage is the most natural perception of our eyes. Imagine that you are standing in front of this reef and watching the sunset in the distance. When the last light of the sunset pierces your eyes, it must be extremely dazzling and dazzling; At that moment, although the human eye can bear much more than the camera, it must be difficult for us to see the texture of the backlight surface of the foreground reef clearly. This is the reason for the overexposure of highlights and the intentional overflow of shadows in the later period of Figure 2, and it is also the most suitable and natural way to deal with it. Only the most natural is the most comfortable!

This is the sunrise and sunset I took in Guangxi last year. In the later stage, the highlights were overexposed to simulate the dazzling feeling of human eyes when backlighting.

It should be noted that the high contrast retouching technology of overexposure of foreground highlights and foreground dark parts can only be used for backlighting, because backlighting is the maximum light ratio faced by the naked eye in reality, so in this case, you will not be able to identify the details of highlights and dark parts. Under the smooth light and side backlight, people can see almost everything with their naked eyes, so if they are overexposed or underexposed seriously, they will be self-defeating.

(2) Form

Some landscape lovers show off the original film as a kind of talk, regardless of the color. When the light passes through the layers of lenses and reaches the sensor, it will definitely produce aberration. Even a lens with a focal length of 50 times will be different from the visual perception of the naked eye, but this distortion can be ignored. Therefore, I will often restore the perception and experience of my eyes by reshaping the shape and proportion of the scene in the ps.

The first picture is the snow-capped mountain I took with 70 cameras. The red circle under the snow-capped mountains is a hiker walking in the mountains. The snow-capped mountains look very majestic and tall. Figure 2 shows the same snow-capped mountains as Figure 1. The shooting point in Figure 2 is closer to the snow-capped mountains than that in Figure 1. However, due to wide-angle shooting, it seems that the snow-capped mountains are short and have no majestic momentum at all.

At this time, I will make the mountain bigger and closer to the shock when we stand at the foot of the snow-capped mountain and look up through a series of deformation operations in photoshop.

1。 Take the mountain you want to stretch with the rectangular selection toolbox in ps:

2。 Use the shortcut key command+t to bring up the free transform tool, and drag the top stretch, and we can see that the mountain becomes straighter.

3。 Click Edit? Perspective deformation, using perspective deformation tools to make the mountain bigger.

4。 Click? Layout? , use the mouse to pull out the box until the whole picture is covered.

5。 Click on the top? Deformation? Then use the mouse to pull each grid point and stretch the snow mountain to the degree you want.

The picture on the right shows the effect after stretching. You can see that the snow-capped mountains have become higher and sharper.

Some people may question it. Isn't this fraud? Is the picture presented in the camera real, or is your inner feelings real at that time? When you can't judge, please close your eyes and follow your heart to restore your feelings at that time. I think you will find the answer.

(3) Virtual reality

Someone once showed me a picture of his scenery. He said that his pictures were extremely sharp, and he showed me the details of the distant mountains specially. Sure enough, after zooming in, the outline of every tree on the mountain is clearly discernible. But is this really a good picture? Or, is the later stage of that work really excellent?

Let's take a look at this landscape painting by painter Zhao Chunqiu:

From near to far, both the strength of the pen tip and the concentration of painting ink are gradually decreasing. Foreground trees, deep streams, distant peaks and forests are all illusory. Traditional Chinese painting emphasizes the complementarity of reality and reality, so does landscape photography.

Reality in landscape photography is not only the rendering of artistic conception, but also the natural perception of human eyes. For example, if you stand on a hillside and look at the distant peaks, based on human vision, you must see the nearest things, such as the grass under your feet, and the farther away the peaks are, the more blurred you are until you can only see the general outline of the mountains, let alone distinguish the details of each tree on the distant mountains. Therefore, the above picture, which is extremely sharp from near to far, itself does not conform to the visual laws of the human eye and will make the photo appear dry and rigid.

Usually when dealing with photos of this depth, I will ensure the clarity of the foreground, because that is the place where the naked eye can see the most clearly; The foreground is added to the virtual, because it conforms to the law that human vision gradually decays from near to far. Softening effect usually acts on highlights to enhance the dreamy effect of light.

There are many ways to soften images, and the most commonly used ones are as follows:

1。 Copy the layer first, then choose the filter? Blurred? Gaussian blur.

2。 The value of Gaussian blur varies according to the pixel size of the picture, and 37 pixels is a parameter I often use.

3。 At this point, the picture becomes blurred, it doesn't matter, and then reduce the transparency of the layer. Usually I will use the value of 15%.

4。 Gaussian blur will make the photo softer but also reduce the contrast of the picture, so the next step is to make up for the lost contrast. Apply on this layer? Images? Adjust? Color code? .

Pull the two ends of the color code to the middle, because the transparency of the layer is very low, so the slider can go beyond the dark and bright parts of the histogram, depending on the picture effect.

5。 Finally, use the mask to erase the places that don't need to be softened, such as the flowers and plants in the foreground, and the dark parts in the medium and long term can also add a little less softening effect.

After this treatment, the faint feeling of the distant peaks contrasts with the clear details of the foreground flowers, which conforms to the laws of human vision and enhances the atmosphere of the photos, which is also the reason why many excellent photos of the later scenery look less dry.

Although the effect of landscape photography is ever-changing, what are the conditions that an excellent later stage will definitely meet? Comply with the laws of nature, with the naked eye, and with inner feelings.

Therefore, when you are confused or reach the bottleneck in pre-production and post-production, you might as well put down your camera, experience it with your eyes and feel it with your heart when shooting.